Former Nova Scotia Conservative MP Bill Casey survived 21 years in Parliament before his 2009 retirement, he survived ejection from the Tory caucus, and, finally, he survived cancer. Now he must survive being labelled pro-life just as he aspires to win back his old seat for the pro-abortion Liberals.
Casey had no sooner announced he would seek the Grit nomination in Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, now held for the Conservatives by his former campaign manager Scott Armstrong, than Industry Minister James Moore was mischievously tweeting: “J.Trudeau said those who are pro-life can't run for him & disagree on issues of conscience. Bill Casey is pro-life https://www.clcns.com/federal2006.htm.”
The link leads to a Campaign Life Coalition NS web page from the 2006 federal election, evaluating Nova Scotia candidates one by one. Beside Casey’s name is this comment: “Listed as Pro-life in the 2000 election by The Interim and stated that he is solidly pro-life. votemarriagecanada.ca approved.”
This artefact is hardly authoritative. Ellen Chesal, executive director of Campaign Life Nova Scotia, hunted through her paper archives to unearth another CLC 2006 candidate evaluation form describing Casey as “not prolife” without giving reasons.
And Jeff Gunnarson, vice president of Campaign Life Coalition, told LifeSiteNews that from his own archival hunt he discovered Casey “was last rated as Pro-abortion in 2008,” after which he retired.” In his early years, he was rated as “not pro-life,” reported Gunnarson, which put him somewhere between pro-life and pro-abortion. But “Colloquially,” admits Gunnarson, “was known as pro-life.” In an Interim Magazine article dated May 15, 2000 Casey is described in passing as one of two “pro-life MPs” who nonetheless had voted for a Liberal bill, C-23, elevating same-sex coupling to the status of civil unions.
This casual reference may have been the source of what Casey himself has declared is an entirely erroneous evaluation. On the contrary, Casey was apparently born pro-abortion, or very nearly, so he told the CBC. He recalls voting against his own party and government on Bill C-43, the Tory effort to recriminalize abortion, in 1990. “It was my own government's bill. It was very difficult. It was in my first term and I voted against the abortion bill because it restricted abortions.”
Casey insisted he supports Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s policy that only pro-abortion candidates need apply for candidacies in next year’s federal election.
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